


The Snap

by KittenKin



Category: Marvel 616, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/pseuds/KittenKin
Summary: I found out that Sherlock Holmes is part of Marvel's Earth 616, and then someone asked me if the Holmes-Watson family would be affected by the snap. Rude?!So I wrote this. Share my pain.





	The Snap

It happens at the most ordinary of times; a quiet Saturday morning, when John doesn't have to go in to work and Sherlock is just perking back up after an exhausting case. They’re in that lull just after breakfast, still busy cleaning up and not quite gotten to that tipping point where they have to choose between falling back into idleness or pushing forward into useful activity.

John notices first, but doesn’t understand. He only knows instinctively that this is not just bad, not just tragic; this is horror.

“Sherlock?” It’s a whisper-quiet thing, but so laden with denial and terror that the detective’s immediately up on his feet, heart racing and mind grasping for clues. John’s staring at Rosie, and the way she’s flapping her arms. What’s left of them, at least.

Sherlock gasps, and that sound confirms for John that he’s not hallucinating, that this is real, that this is happening, and he darts forward, arms already out as if the black dust is something that he can shoo away from his daughter, or snatch her away from. As if it’s something that’s happening to Rosie, instead of the remnants of her.

He grabs her out of the playpen, shakily patting at her with one hand, motions uncertain as he wavers between brushing the flecks away and trying to pat them back to her as if she’s a sandcastle that needs to be shored up.

“Jesus, no, what…”

He’s panicking and Rosie’s picking up on it and starting to cry, and if that doesn’t just make everything worse, well…he wobbles and goes crashing to the ground, on one knee. On one stump, actually, and he hears as from a great distance Sherlock’s cry of denial.

John looks down at his legs, looks at Rosie almost half gone now and somehow still crying, and then looks at Sherlock. It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask all those stupid questions that everyone asks at the beginning of an unknown crisis, despite no one ever having answers at that point.

What’s going on?

Why is this happening?

How do we stop it?

But the look in Sherlock’s eyes - lost bewildered terrified of being alone again forever uncertain unsure useless fraud what awaits him despair death drugs oblivion - gives him a moment of piercing clarity. He can think so clearly and quickly that it’s as if time slows down, and he even has a moment in which to wonder if this is what it’s like for the genius detective all of the time.

He’s thudding closer to the ground, now, most of his legs gone. Rosie is just a wisp of curls and the echo of a cry in his arms. There’s only time for one or two sentences. He understands absolutely nothing about who and what and why, but he knows that this is his note, now, this is his Reichenbach. He’s going to leave Sherlock with an indelible memory, and he has to make it count, he has to make it help.

“It’s quick, painless,” John reassures him. “Has to be magic; it’s too clean. Call your brother, call Excalibur and MI:13. _Fix this._ ”

“John.” Sherlock’s helpless, brought to his knees - intact thank God - in the face of what is only the beginning of suffering, reduced to tearfully begging for mercy he knows won’t be granted. John only keeps himself from crying as well by a grim determination that his last sight of Sherlock Holmes will not be a blurry one. He’s almost gone. He’s looking up at his partner now, braced on one elbow and a bit of torso. It would be fascinating if it wasn’t so terrible.

“Don’t forget to sleep and eat, and remember, we love you and we’re waiting.”

He tries to smile and that does it; he finally lets a tear fall. Sherlock doesn’t smile back, instead he sobs and drops his head into his hands, and that’s when John knows that he’s disappeared.


End file.
